|
The sun is finally rising on the Tokyo Olympics, but it is surely already the strangest games ever. The host city is in a state of national emergency, leading officials are resigning over gaffes, numerous athletes are self-isolating from COVID, and top Japanese industrialists are avoiding the opening ceremony.
Perhaps the nation will somehow still snatch a great games from the jaws of defeat, but the same cannot be said of the financial picture. Taku Tamaki looks at the big economic bounce that Japan had been expecting, and how spiralling costs and the pandemic have turned it upside down.
This week’s podcast focuses on the Olympians themselves. Leading specialists in sports science, tech and psychology offer their views on the limits of what sportswomen and men will ever be able to achieve.
Elsewhere, we take a close look at spyware, and why the Pegasus system has been at the centre of recent explosive media revelations. And don’t miss this explainer on why COVID cases have been rising among people who have been double vaccinated.
|
Steven Vass
Business + Economy Editor
|
|
|
Aflo Co. Ltd./Alamy
Taku Tamaki, Loughborough University
The economic benefits of the Olympics are in question like never before.
|
kolvenbach/Alamy Stock Photo
Gemma Ware, The Conversation; Daniel Merino, The Conversation
Plus, the troubled 1920 Antwerp Olympics and the parallels they have for Tokyo. Listen to The Conversation Weekly.
|
Zoomik/Shutterstock
Christian Kemp, Anglia Ruskin University
Revelations of spyware abuse suggest we're moving to a new reality in which no phone is safe from surveillance.
|
Andy Rain/EPA-EFE
Jamie Hartmann-Boyce, University of Oxford
Most people being hospitalised with COVID-19 in the UK have had both vaccine doses, but this is to be expected as vaccination rates rise.
|
Health + Medicine
|
-
Rob Reddick, The Conversation
Simultaneously high levels of virus and vaccination will give further evidence of just how protective COVID-19 vaccines are.
-
Mark Shrime, RCSI University of Medicine and Health Sciences
India, Nigeria, Pakistan and South Africa lose thousands of trained doctors each year, lured away to work in richer countries – at great cost to their nation's healthcare systems.
|
|
Science + Technology
|
-
Jessica Irving, University of Bristol; Anna Horleston, University of Bristol
Mars' core is larger and less dense than we thought.
-
Edith Hammer, Lund University
There are more microorganisms in a teaspoon of soil than there are humans on Earth – but what are they all up to?
|
|
Politics + Society
|
-
Kate Woodthorpe, University of Bath
For those who can't afford to pay funeral costs, state support is patchy at best and unlawful at worst.
-
Craig Jackson, Birmingham City University
Ten years after Anders Breivik killed 77 people in Norway, a look at how the country has changed.
|
|
Arts + Culture
|
-
Timothy Noël Peacock, University of Glasgow
The cinematic legacies of Operation Crossroads, the first peacetime nuclear tests, fundamentally shaped how we view the mushroom cloud.
|
|
|
|
Environment + Energy
|
-
Richard K Broughton, University of Oxford
"Will it become a wood again, how long will it take, which species will be in it?"
|
|
| |
Featured events
|
|
University of Essex, Wivenhoe Park, Colchester, Essex, CO4 3SQ, United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland — University of Essex
|
|
|
|
| |
| |
| |
| |
| |
|
|
